How to Build Wealth With Tulsa Real Estate | Jennifer Mount on Rentals, Flips, and Timing the Market

Jennifer Mount (00:00)
Okay, so this has always been my philosophy. And one thing I’m very adamant about is that I am a relationship broker. I’m not a transactional broker. So not trying to shoot myself in the foot or put myself out of business, but I actually don’t think people should ever sell a house. I mean, I think everyone should hold on to everything that they can. And here’s why.

Number one, people are always gonna have to have somewhere to live.

Dylan Silver (01:59)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Jennifer Mount is the co-founder and managing broker of Legacy Realty Advisors in Tulsa, Oklahoma. With more than 24 years of experience, she has worked closely with families and investors to help them make strategic real estate decisions. She focuses on building long-term wealth and stability through real estate while also emphasizing leadership and legacy in both business and life. Jennifer, thanks for joining us today.

Jennifer Mount (02:25)
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Dylan Silver (02:28)
It’s great to have you on here. And I’d like to start off at the top, Jennifer, by asking you, what are you seeing in the Tulsa market today?

Jennifer Mount (02:36)
Today in the Tulsa market, are seeing in some people’s eyes what they would consider a little bit longer days on the market. I was coaching my team recently and I pulled out an old tracking sheet that I had where I had 11 listings and the average days on the market was like 74. That was back in probably 2005. So, you know,

Perspective is a lot of what goes into people’s opinions, right? So a lot of people got spoiled from those COVID days where we would have one hour on the market, two days on the market. So now that now in today’s market in Tulsa, 51 days is the average days on the market. People think that’s long, but in the scope of the real estate cycle, it’s pretty average.

Dylan Silver (03:29)
You know, one of those things about, and I would say this is tricky about being a realtor, being a broker, is you have to be looking and prospecting and finding buyers and sellers, but you also have to be constantly managing expectations as well. And people’s expectations aren’t based on the current market, they’re based on the market two or three years ago. And so that can be very challenging, especially as folks are building their business, because they’re feeling like, hey, I’m coming into some level of…

maybe some level of conflict, even with my own clients, because I’m having to really have these conversations, which can be challenging, right?

Jennifer Mount (04:52)
Yes, and so I’ll tell you something that I’ve been doing to coach my sellers, people who are selling their home right now, is instead of looking at a market analysis, I’ll look at how much they paid for the home and the average appreciation throughout my career in Tulsa has been about 3%. So we’re not one of these markets that’s gonna escalate quickly.

but we also don’t have much, we don’t hardly ever go down, if ever. So if you want a safe investment, this is a great place to be. So instead of helping them price their home based on the current market analysis, I’ll say, okay, how much did you pay for it? Let’s add 3 % a year. That’s probably what it’s really worth. Now.

If the comps show way higher than that, yes, we can price it for that and it probably will appraise, but I want to manage your expectations that everything got thrown off during COVID. So just because this market analysis says right now your house should sell for this, in reality, it might not.

Dylan Silver (05:57)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s a great point. And COVID threw everything for a loop. You mentioned the days on market. It could be not even a day. It could be a few hours. And so that can really change people’s perspective. And that still holds over till today where people are thinking, well, this, this days on market, this is taking a while. You know, what should my home sell for? This is, you know, where I’m thinking it should be, but they’re basing it off of what their friends household for two or three years ago. That’s of course,

going to be semi-relevant today. I do want to ask you specifically though about the acquisitions price for a typical, let’s look at a typical pre-owned home and then a typical new home. Where are you seeing the typical buy price for new and pre-owned properties?

Jennifer Mount (06:44)
So the average sales price for Tulsa as of today, year to date, is about $271,000. That’s the average price, taking all the highs and all the lows to get an average. New construction, if you wanted to just single that out, I would say you really can’t get into anything more than 1,400 square feet for

less than 300. I’ll give you an example. have an investor, I have several investors that I’ve been working with that are selling their properties in California, putting it into a 1031 asset exchange to avoid the tax liability and then reinvesting it in Tulsa. So a couple weeks ago, I had a couple fly in and they sold their building

for 1.1 million and then we bought four single family homes here in Tulsa with that money.

Dylan Silver (07:45)
Wow, that’s a huge, those were all brand new.

Jennifer Mount (07:46)
And so,

well, two of them are used less than 10 years old. Two of them are less than 10 years old and two of them are brand new, straight out of the ground, off of them. They were already in the final phases of construction.

Dylan Silver (07:50)
Wow.

Okay.

Now, I’m here in Texas currently. One of the things that I’ve noticed is there’s just so much new construction like everywhere. And so, especially for folks like Flippers and for anyone involved in value add rehab and the pre-owned space, it is somewhat more challenging because you’re seeing, I know some markets, you’re seeing brand new homes that are seemingly like $260,000. I know that’s hard to believe, but they are happening out here.

For the Oklahoma market and where you’re at, Tulsa specifically, are you seeing lots and lots of ground up new construction happening everywhere?

Jennifer Mount (08:39)
This is the interesting thing about Tulsa is that people who are true Tulsans, they’re not going to be willing to move to the areas where new construction is being built. So you would have to go to a suburb to get new construction such as Bixby, Jinx, Owasso, Collinsville. And if somebody says, you know, like I want to live in Midtown,

then I guess new construction isn’t as much of a game changer here for people that actually want to live in the Tulsa metro area, because their only option is resale. Or one thing we are seeing is people buying, say,

Dylan Silver (09:16)
Okay.

Jennifer Mount (09:20)
dilapidated house and tearing it down in midtown and then putting a new house up. So maybe you buy the lot for $150 and then do an infill.

Dylan Silver (10:04)
That’s a very interesting strategy. I’ve seen a lot of that. I saw a lot of that in Dallas Fort Worth Metro. Pretty much anywhere I’m going, I’m seeing more and more people interested in these infill lots, whether it’s just a blank lot or whether there’s some type of heavily distressed fire damage, water damage, like tear down property. And I think it’s part of that trend as well as people are wanting to buy.

brand new or like new. And one of the difficulties there as well is from an investor first standpoint, people are having to change their arithmetic leading into a deal, their pro forma, because they’re thinking, okay, this deal may sit on market for potentially months because if this is a flip house and people have the opportunity to buy a basically new or literally new ground up construction in an infill lot,

I’m now competing with that property where in previous times they may not have been. There’s now so much of that that people are. I do want to get a little bit granular here, Jennifer, and ask you know, for investors who are looking into the Tulsa market, are you seeing flips happening? Is there a lot of flipping happening? Or is it mostly like long term rentals that you’re seeing investor activity?

Jennifer Mount (11:18)
both, however, in order to do a flip, it’s about 90 % of the time needs to be an off-market deal. So you would need a highly trained agent that is out proactively prospecting for you to get the deals before they come on the market. Because once they get to MLS,

the margins aren’t there because they’ve added the commission and this and that, you know, so I’ve done two, I’ve helped two investors do flips this year. One of them was myself and then one of them is one of my best investors and those were both off market properties.

Dylan Silver (11:53)
So you’re active in the flipping space as well. How long have you been active as an investor for?

Jennifer Mount (11:58)
So for some reason, whenever I was 20, which I’m gonna be 50 tomorrow. So I’m coming up on a big, I know, I can’t believe it. I used to think 50 was so old, it is not old. And so when I was 20, I had this goal that I wanted to buy 10 houses and then pay them all off, hold them as rentals.

Dylan Silver (12:05)
Happy birthday.

Jennifer Mount (12:22)
and pay them all off and then through retirement sell one house every five years to fund our retirement. And I no longer have a husband. He’s that was a in the past as well as well as a lot of other dreams. However, the 10 houses did come to fruition. So I got up to the point where I had about 17 doors.

And then I scaled back. So right now I have nine. So I say all that to say I am more of a buy and hold girl. However, when an opportunity does arise to do a flip, I will. And I’ve only done one flip in 25 years. So I’ve acquired about, I think I’ve bought and sold about 26 homes and ⁓ I’ve only flipped one of them.

Dylan Silver (13:07)
When you’re looking at making an acquisition and when you’re looking at selling, being a buy and hold investor predominantly versus flipping, how do you determine, you know, when’s the right market cycle to make an acquisition or to make a sell? And then how do you determine where to price your properties when you’re in that time period?

Jennifer Mount (14:09)
Okay, so this has always been my philosophy. And one thing I’m very adamant about is that I am a relationship broker. I’m not a transactional broker. So not trying to shoot myself in the foot or put myself out of business, but I actually don’t think people should ever sell a house. I mean, I think everyone should hold on to everything that they can. And here’s why.

Number one, people are always gonna have to have somewhere to live.

And number two, once you have an asset like that, then if you get into a bind, then sell it. But especially I get the privilege of working with a lot of first and second time buyers is I’m like, this needs to be your model. Buy a house, live in it, rent it out. Buy your next house, live in it.

rent it out. That way you’re not selling, so you’re not paying capital gains tax. And here’s one more piece of advice that I have taken to heart and that I always encourage people on too is only buy something that you would be willing to live in. And then how fun would it be if in retirement you go back and you live in each one of those properties for three years, save that 30 % capital gains tax, sell it as your primary, and then just repeat that. know, there’s a lot of

strategies you can use to invest that can that are not just about when do I buy and when do I sell it’s just about the long game because we’re going to be here a while so we all need to you know strategically plan and another thing I’ve been encouraging my buyers and sellers is that when is the best time to sell or buy it’s whenever your life

depicts or Determines that it’s time if you have a baby if someone passes away If you have an in-law that needs to start living with you, you know So quit waiting on the interest rate to change and buy your home to accommodate your lifestyle Not sacrificing your lifestyle because of an interest rate

Dylan Silver (16:02)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s one of these deals where oftentimes people are waiting to like time the market, it can be like threading a needle, but you mentioned have it be dependent on your life and your lifestyle. What are you needing from a cashflow perspective and really hold on to these properties as long as you can so that you can bank on the appreciation long term and that that exponential growth as.

Jennifer Mount (16:10)
Right.

Dylan Silver (16:26)
the years had on. are coming up on time here though, Jennifer, any new projects that you’re working on and then as well, what’s the best way for folks to reach out to you or your team?

Jennifer Mount (16:29)
Okay.

So I would say the newest project that we’re working on right now is growing the legacy team. There are eight agents that are working with me and each one of my agents is also strategically building their investment portfolio. Because ironically, a lot of realtors don’t even invest in the product that we sell.

So I would say a good person to reach out to me would be any investor looking to build a real estate portfolio here in the Tulsa or Oklahoma area, or any person that’s wanting to maybe get into the real estate industry as an agent and come in and be mentored by someone who’s pretty much seen every scenario possible.